made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' nest.

D. PEDRO. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

BENE. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.

D. PEDRO. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

BENE. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! an oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance, upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire foo. Come, talk not of her: you shall find

218 impossible conveyance] incredible dexterity.

220 speaks poniards] Cf. Hamlet, III, ii, 386: "I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

221 terminations] Benedict's extravagant synonym for "terms,"

212

"epithets."

her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

D. PEDRO. Look, here she comes.

Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO

BENE. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies; rather than hold three words'

...

227 Ate] The spirit of discord (inciting to war) of Homeric mythology. A full description of her appears in Spenser's Faery Queen, IV, i, 19-30. 228 some scholar would conjure her] The exorcism of evil spirits was commonly couched in the Latin tongue, and the exorcist was of necessity reckoned a scholar. Cf. Hamlet, I, i, 42: "Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio." 238-240 Prester John great Cham... Pigmies] These personages of romance were deemed to live in the remotest parts of Asia. "Prester John" was a fabulous king of vast wealth; "the great Cham" was the supreme ruler of the Mongols, and the "Pigmies" were a tribe in the northern mountains of India. In the early French romance of Huon of Bordeaux, which Lord Berners translated into English in 1534, one of the feats imposed on the hero by his French suzerain is to bring a "handful of the hair of the beard" of the ruler of Babylon together with four of his greatest teeth.

232

conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

D. PEDRO. None, but to desire your good company.

BENE. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.

[Exit. D. PEDRO. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

BEAT. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore Grace your well say I have lost it. D. PEDRO. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

may

BEAT. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

D. PEDRO. Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?

CLAUD. Not sad, my lord.

D. PEDRO. How then? sick?

CLAUD. Neither, my lord.

BEAT. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

242

251

249 use] interest. Cf. Sonnet vi, 5: "That use is not forbidden usury."

263 civil] A quibble on "Civil" and "Seville." According to Cotgrave's Fr.-Engl. Dict., "a civile orange a civile orange" was "aigre-douce" "betweene sweet and sower."

260

D. PEDRO. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

LEON. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it.

BEAT. Speak, count, 't is your cue.

CLAUD. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

BEAT. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

D. PEDRO. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. BEAT. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUD. And so she doth, cousin.

BEAT. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one

of care.

270

280

283 the windy side of care] out or the way of, or having the advantage Cf. Tw. Night, III, iv, 156: "Still you keep o' the windy side of the aw." It is a nautical metaphor drawn from the practice of sailing ships in naval actions endeavouring to get the weather gauge of the enemy, i. e. to get the wind behind them and against their foe.

286-287 goes... to the world] gets married. Cf. All's Well, I, iii, 18, and As you like it, V, iii, 4.

to the world but I, and I am sun-burnt; I may sit in a corner, and cry heigh-ho for a husband!

D. PEDRO. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. BEAT. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

D. PEDRO. Will you have me, lady?

BEAT. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace, pardon me: I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

D. PEDRO. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

BEAT. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

LEON. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEAT. I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace's pardon.

[Exit.

D. PEDRO. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. LEON. There's little of the melancholy element in her,

287 sun-burnt] neglected, exposed to the weather, homely, plain. Cf. Troil. and Cress., I, iii, 282-283: "The Grecian dames are sunburnt, and not worth The splinter of a lance."

288 cry heigh-ho for a husband] The title of an old ballad of which a copy is preserved in the Pepysian collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

289

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